Put clean energy to use instead of dumping it

July 24, 2013

Maui has made many good investments in green energy and we can be proud of our progress toward a more sustainable future. But what happened to the savings on our electric bills? It is frustrating to find out that Maui Electric is dumping so much of the renewable energy created by our wind farms (The Maui News, July 10).

It doesn't make sense that power utilities need to waste so much of this valuable clean electricity. If we consistently make more wind energy than we need on Maui, then it's time that we find a way to share that power with Oahu where renewable energy makes up less than 6 percent of their power.

An undersea cable would be a big investment, but if it lets us offset expensive fossil fuels with clean wind energy, then it is an idea we need to explore.